Conservation 4(SP4)

Envy in the Preservation Sphere

The Envy of the E4 when combined with this instinct leads to conservational envy. This kind of envy makes them harder to notice as 4s, the envy turned against oneself leads them to conserve their own suffering, to believe that they can endure and handle much more, they feel the need to protect their own dream of the future. Because of this, it is not uncommon for the SP4 to be very stoic, as they are used to swallowing pain. They have learned to tolerate pain and not dwell in it. Because of the SP need for survival, they demand a lot from themselves and have a passion for effort.

Ichazo called SP4 "Defensive action", someone who's protecting their own dream of the future, a self-demanding individual who expects love from his determination and commitment. Naranjo describes it as someone who wishes to take care of themselves because they subconsciously believe that nobody will take care of them, letting themselves sink deeper in this frustration.

Trait Structure

Self-demand and Perfectionism

Closely related to tenacity lives self-demandingness, a self-revolutionary orality that pours on itself the tacit demand, originally directed elsewhere. It feeds on tenacity, since it demands more and more, raising the bar and what is at stake requires, on the other hand, having the resources to sustain this task. But self-demand also has to be accompanied by dissatisfaction and self-hatred; only in this way is the inner emptiness maintained and leaves the door open to self-evaluating confrontation, useful to feel that it is never enough.

“Nothing is enough for me. A task that I tackle and that I finish always leaves me with a point of dissatisfaction, like I have to be aware and say: ‘okay, that's fine, that's enough.’”

Although it is not difficult to confuse the search for perfection of an conservation E4 with that of an E1, the conservation E4 accompanies this attitude with effort and dissatisfaction: the search to be perfect or to do things perfectly is the consequence of a feeling of inferiority and an attempt to compensate for the experience of being insufficient.

Empathy

Great sensitivity and observation capacity that allows them to capture and understand the characteristics of those who are in front of them. Good listeners, they easily empathize with the suffering of others and are able to contain and accompany, either because they see parts of themselves in the other or because, knowing internal states of deep suffering, they have developed self-support resources. It is a character capable of silence, of enduring the emptiness of the other, of transmitting a deep understanding devoid of judgment. In suffering he feels a bond, as he usually does with his original affections.

Difficulty accepting limits

Another aspect related to the above is the difficulty accepting internal and external limits. Greed, which knows no impediments, does not even take into account the limited individual resources, and demands more and more effort and work. Ignorance of one's own limits, especially in terms of real possibilities, is accompanied by an idea of omnipotence.The deep capacity to endure, to tolerate, sustains the equally profound inability to ask for help, an action that, in order to be practiced, requires above all the awareness of not being able to do it alone, but also the humility to feel the need. He is unable to recognize real needs, even if they are physical (sleep, rest, eat), either because he experiences a certain level of disconnection with his own body or because internally he avoids perceiving the needs that imply the inclusion of the other.

Masochistic attitude

The bad image of oneself, the lack of esteem with which one is in contact, and the idea of not deserving lead him to even tolerate humiliating conditions, especially in the relational sphere. The thirst for belonging, the need for love and recognition are such that they lead the subject to tolerate without limits, with the expectation that this tolerance will be interpreted by the other as a sign of love and appreciation.

Refinement

Good taste, love for the beautiful and for everything refined, a characteristic shared with the other subtypes and revealing a deep sensitivity. In the conservative E4, this sensitivity is hidden, and masked by bodily rigidity and emotional freezing.

Caregiver of others, Helpful, and Welcoming

The conservation E4 lives the relationship with others, friends and family with a great spirit of service and care. In this approach he finds fulfillment, a sense of worth, and a practical way to express love. He cares for others both materially and emotionally, though often risking taking on more than is necessary. In service he finds an identity, a place that makes him worthwhile and allows belonging.

Stoic and Little hedonistic

The attitude of earning merit through work leaves little room for fun and pleasure, dimensions with which this character is unfamiliar. Pleasure is felt by always finding satisfaction in doing, but directed towards something (a goal) or someone. It is difficult to be aware of what increases the happiness of one without including the other, in fact this character is not clear about what makes him feel good. Contact with nature, silence, being with oneself, listening to music, dedicating time to oneself, are the possibilities that one sometimes allows oneself and that are closest to an idea of pleasure, as well as, on the other hand, the pleasure of endless movement, of spontaneity, and freedom of action and speech is hindered.

Resource finder and Decisive creativity

It is the ability to find solutions creatively, especially when they are needed for issues that concern others and not oneself.Specifically, creativity is expressed in the will to find possibilities through the omnipotent attitude of overcoming obstacles, of seeing alternative paths, of not giving up despite the difficulties.

Compelling enthusiasm

This is even more evident when it comes to supporting the other person to regain their energy and will to live, to transform and believe more in themselves. With a visceral desire for harmony and beauty, he manages to communicate that achieving a state of integration is possible. This stems from her own need, but also from a deep insight that healing (not perfection!) is a possible reality. Finally, he knows how to convey the idea that everyone has value, precisely because it is a need that he has always felt. These attitudes make you a good therapist, should you enter this profession.

Dry in self-tenderness and Difficulty expressing tenderness

Affectionate, benevolent, helpful character, with great drive in friendships and relationships but with deep shame of his own loving gestures. There is an impulse to restrain tenderness and related actions, perhaps because in childhood they are related to total dependence, to showing the fragility of feelings. So much dedication towards the outside world finds no correspondence towards the self.

Difficulty confronting and Unclear on divergent expression

Difficulty clearly expressing a divergent and contrary position, especially if the majority thinks differently. Internally, it remains in a different position that hardly has the courage to declare, such is the fear of marginalization or confrontation.

Rigidity

It is a mental rigidity that finds its correspondence in both a physical and postural rigidity that has to do with a unilateral way of seeing things, self-destructive in favor of the other, but also with a physical and muscular rigidity, as if to simulate a condition of alert and fear always present, being attentive to what is happening around, capturing every signal from a control perspective, to know how to react and prevent.

Hoarding

Ability to save and accumulate both objects that can be useful and experiences. To keep to oneself, a kind of greed, to have more to feel that one can always count on additional inner resources to draw on.

Worth

With a brave character, he does not shy away from challenges, he knows how to endure with patience and willpower even the toughest tests, whether they affect him or those close to him. If the stake is high, there is no room for reflection on whether or not to undertake difficult paths.

Constant alertness and Control

Tends to live in a state of alert with a control attitude, and with straight antennas to perceive the signals in time and know how to act preventively.

Ironic

Capable of being funny, ironic, even sarcastic at times, as a way to sublimate anger. He has humor in a subtle and intelligent way, the irony about his own characteristics, about the heavy events of life, as an attempt to cushion the pain and access a certain lightness.

Sense of justice

He lives a deep desire for justice that arises from his own experience of having suffered injustice. He strives and fights for equality, and believes in the value of solidarity. You can be very disciplined in following your ideals.

Spiritual

Thanks to his contact with lack, he seeks the transcendent as a way to free himself from his painful experience and the feeling of incompleteness that accompanies it, but also as a vehicle to make sense of himself, of life and to seek the Beyond. This aspiration to transcendence, if not freed from the ego, runs the risk of being a stoic search for sacrifice, a narcissistic ideal of holiness to redeem oneself from deprivation.

Claudio Naranjo's Self-Preservation 4 Description

E4 Conservation (Self-Preservation) – Tenacity

Different from the "sufferer" (social E4) and the "insufferable" (sexual E4) is what is called the "suffered" (or “long-suffering”) in Spanish, an expression that speaks to us of a capacity for self-frustration and endurance.

Instead of being a very tearful person, the sufferer is one who does not complain and avoids crying in front of others, and who has learned to swallow a lot and endure pain without blinking.

How could we explain this in terms of motivation? What need can push a person to become a masochist? It is something like saying to a parent or loved one: “Do you see that I am not complaining? Do you want me now? Do you see what a good boy, what a good girl I am?”

The E4 conservation aims to make virtue of resistance to frustration. Many times I have explained it with an anecdote from Lawrence of Arabia, according to the famous film, which shows him in an office in Cairo lighting someone's cigarette and then putting out the match with his fingers. Someone asks him surprised: “What are you doing?” And he explains that, in this way, he trains himself to endure pain. He had developed from childhood this supposed virtue of stoically enduring pain, and it surely served him during his exploits, which earned him the fame of a great hero, for not even among the Arabs had anyone known how to withstand the harshness of the desert in such a way.

In the E4 conservation, supporting is a passion, but how to explain it? I think the key is in the introjection of greed. The visible envy that presents the sexual E4 as a demanding and insistent oral aggressive, becomes here a counter-envy directed against the person himself, now in the form of a self-demand that is also self-devouring.